Nepal police deny terror suspect’s arrest

PRASHANT ACHARYA, EOI, Siliguri, 28 Oct 2014: The Nepal police have denied reports about the arrest of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh activist Yusuf Sheikh from the border town of Kakarbhitta in Nepal on Monday in connection with the October 2 Burdwan bomb blast. 

Top police officers from the neighbouring country said on Tuesday there has been no arrest of such a person from Kakarbhitta and their Indian counterparts have also not intimated them about any such arrest. 

Further, the Darjeeling police, SSB and BSF have also disclaimed the arrest. SSB sources said there were reports of Yusuf hiding either in Nepal or north Bengal and accordingly, the border was only being thoroughly checked. 

Yusuf Sheikh, a resident of Beldanga in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, is alleged to have been a mastermind behind the terror outfit that was functioning in Burdwan in south Bengal and the founder of the madrasah in the district where members of the terror outfit active in Burdwan had undergone religious training. 

Though the West Bengal police had claimed that Yusuf Sheikh had been nabbed in Kakarbhitta, the NIA, which is investigating into the Burdwan blast, had taken the report with a pinch of salt, arguing that Yusuf-lookalikes could have been planted in possible places where security forces would keep a vigil to put them on the wrong trac